Page 195 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Evangelical Missions and African Initiatives

in 1810. The Wesleyan Methodists founded their society in 1813, the
German Basel Mission followed in 1815, and many more were organized
as the years passed.

Interestingly, these societies decided to focus on specific areas of
Africa. For example, the London Missionary Society focused on Southern
Africa and Madagascar; the Church Missionary Society concentrated on
West and East Africa; and the Basel Mission focused on Ghana. The
Universities Mission targeted Central Africa and the Baptists went to
the Congo. The book Handbook: North American Protestant Ministries
Overseas lists hundreds of supporting and sending agencies, an
indication of the historical development of Protestant missions in Africa.

Moving Inland
In the previous chapter, we focused on the advance of the gospel
primarily along the coast of Africa. Some African missionaries were
successful in going inland; however, when evangelical missionaries
tried to penetrate the interior of the continent, they found the going
difficult and costly. The struggle with living conditions, severe climate,
and disease was at times overwhelming. Many died of malaria, yellow
fever, typhus, and dysentery. In Beetham’s words:

The European arm of this missionary movement…was a costly
business. In the first twelve years of its work from 1828 at
Christiansborg, Accra, the Basel Mission lost eight of nine men
from fever. The CMS lost fifty-three men and women in Sierra
Leone between 1804 and 1824. The Methodists in the fifteen
years following 1835 had seventy-eight new appointments, men
and wives in Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast; thirty of
these died within a year of arrival. (quoted in Kane, 138)

Often the pioneer years were barren as far as visible results were
concerned. Sometimes years passed before missionaries baptized
converts and established churches. To use the harvest analogy, the
pioneering years were a “time for sowing” the Word of God. However,
as someone said, “before sowing one has to clear the rocks from the
fields and to prepare the soil.” This process of preparation was taking
place in Africa. The great harvest of the twentieth and twenty-first
century stems from this time of difficult preparation. I do not see any

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